My focus in this blog is twofold:    keeping guns away from those who should not have them; and closing the loopholes in the Brady Law which allow such people to purchase these weapons with such lethal power.

That renowned social commentator Ozzy Osbourne once remarked when asked about violence among adolescents:   “I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don’t kill people, but people kill people. If that’s the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war?  Why not just send the people?”   The slogan, without the expletive, is one of the NRA’s favorite bumper stickers.

Guns are more lethal than any other tool people use to kill others.  They are also the most effective means of committing suicide.  In 1999, the newest figures I could find, did you know that 58% of all gun deaths in the U.S. were suicides, and only 38% were homicides?  I suppose the other 4% were gun related accidents of one sort or another.   At a panel presentation at the Lexington Forum on 3/3/2011, the First Vice President of the NRA, Jim Porter, sloughed off any concern at all for the victims of suicide by guns, as if they didn’t matter or that they were relevant to the debate about closing loopholes or keeping guns out of the wrong hands.   His callous disregard for them was typical of my experience with the NRA.

Another favored comment of the NRA used to oppose any regulation, licensing and stricter background checks is that “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”. No one is talking about outlawing guns, or abolishing the Second Amendment, which the Supreme Court has recently and clearly  affirmed the rights of individuals to own firearms for their own purposes. Cities cannot ban the ownership of handguns, as did the District of Columbia for many years.  It’s not likely that decision will be overturned anytime soon.  So a few regulations are not the slippery slope to the exaggerated pronouncement that the Federal government, and President Obama, will confiscate all privately held firearms.    The bumper sticker that says:  When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns is nothing but pure fear-mongering, and really ridiculous when you think about it logically.

We should note  that thousands upon thousands of people who cause death to others through the use of a lethal firearm, were not criminals until they pulled the trigger. The Brady law doesn’t stop anyone who has no record on file (a crucial point in the current debates) with the FBI from getting a weapon, and fairly quickly.

Secondly, let’s remember that it wasn’t a gun law that contributed to the carnage in Tucson but the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban.  Until Congress allowed the assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, we had a law banning  weapons that would have limited the capacity of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.   Jared Loughner got off 31 shots in about 16 seconds with his Glock semi-automatic pistol.  A member of the audience at the Lexington Forum asked the splendid question:  should there be any limit on the type of weapon an individual might be able to own, under the NRA’s interpretation of the Second Amendment?   The NRA’s 1st VP dodged the question.

Every day, 34 Americans are murdered with guns, most of them possessed illegally.  Since 1968, more than 400,000 Americans have been killed with guns.          Kentucky has some of the most lax gun laws of any state in the country.  We are 13^th for firearms deaths in 2007 (and that includes deaths by homicide, suicide and accident).

On the crime front, Kentucky is a major supply source according to the Mayors Against Illegal Guns (550 mayors of cities all across America have joined this nonprofit, bi-partisan group) in a report issued in September 2010.  Kentucky exports 34.9  crime  weapons for every 100,000 residents, over 2 times the national average of 14.1 guns to commit crimes for every 100,000 in population, which makes KY the number 3 exporter of guns used in domestic U.S. crimes.  Mississippi is #1, and West Virginia is #2.

To keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them overlaps with the issue about closing what are called the “gun show loopholes”, altho’ the loopholes apply to all sales of guns by private, unlicensed sellers, whether at gun shows, or flea markets, or just on the streets.     This will require some new laws, and it would benefit us all if they were federal laws, rather than state laws.   Hodgepodge state laws just encourage trafficking of guns from one state to another.

We need to clarify and expand the definitions of mentally ill persons who would be prohibited from gun ownership (but not to other civil rights) to include people who have, for example, been suspended or expelled from a federally funded college or university because of mental illness; persons who are compelled by a court to take medication for mental illness or to get other mental health care, even if they are not committed to an in-patient treatment facility, as the ATF currently interprets the law.  Four years after VA Tech, 10 states have not submitted any mental health records to NICS; 18 states have submitted fewer than 100 records.  According to a Herald-Leader article on Feb. 5, Kentucky has submitted only 4 names of mentally ill persons to be on the NICS (National Instant  Check System) prohibited list.  You and I know that we have a whole lot more than 4 mentally ill people in Kentucky who have been so judged by the courts, who should be on that list.

Second, we need to clarify and expand the definition of drug abusers who would be prohibited from possessing firearms. Currently the law  applies only to  people who have had a drug-related arrest or conviction, a failed drug test, or an admission of drug use within the previous year.  Jared Loughner, for example, should have been reported by the U.S. Army when he was rejected for enlistment because he admitted that he was a regular user of controlled and banned substances.  But the Army never reported him to the NICS database.

In the case of drug abusers, new legislation should require federal courts to report to the NICS anyone sentenced to mandatory drug treatment even if it is part of a diversionary program that does not result in a conviction.

There should be new and severe penalties for agencies and states who fail to make the appropriate reports of all on the Brady law list who should be prohibited from having guns.  At the same time, if we care about this matter as one of national priority, states should receive funding help to process their reporting of prohibited individuals.

In the second matter, that overlaps clearly with keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people, it would be no big problem to close the loopholes in the background check system by requiring a background check for every gun sale, no matter where it occurs—at a licensed gun dealer’s business, or from a private seller.  The Brady Law, requiring this database, and background check for the sale of hand guns has worked:  it has blocked over 1.9 million felons and other dangerous people who tried to buy guns at licensed gun stores.  Nobody ever said that criminals were smart.

It doesn’t hurt the gun show business to regulate it: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts all require background checks from private sellers.  The gun show business is alive and well in those states.  As a result, most of their guns come from states with very lax gun licensing laws. 30% of illegally trafficked guns are connected to gun shows, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.   Again, Mr. Porter referred to a study done by the NRA that supposedly rebuts the BATF’s report, but the NRA financed study, I am told, has been used in any number of graduate programs to demonstrate how NOT to conduct research and to show students what deeply flawed research looks like.

Itdoesn’t have to be onerous for the private sellers.  If we required all buyers to have a background check through the NICS, unlicensed private sellers can take them to a licensed dealer who will conduct the background check or the seller could inspect a permit issued to the buyer by a state law enforcement agency that confirms that they have passed a NICS background check within a certain time frame; or the seller could go to law enforcement officials for the background check at the time of the sale.  Fees for such background checks should be capped at a reasonable level, say no more than $15.

A bipartisan poll conducted by two firms—one with connections to the Democratic party and one with connections to the Republican party—and taken between January 11 and January 13 this year—just after the Tucson shooting—revealed that 90% of Americans and 90% of gun owners support fixing the gaps in the background check data bases that are meant to stop dangerous people from getting their hands on guns;  89% of Americans and 89% of gun owners support full funding of the post-VA Tech law to improve the process of getting more records in the NICs database; and 86% of Americans and 81% of gun owners support requiring ALL gun sales to include a background check, no matter where they buy the gun or who  they buy it from.

Is it so hard to regulate who owns guns?  We regulate and control who can own a car and who can drive a car.  Every sale of a car has to be registered and pass basic safety specifications, if it is going to run on the streets.  Guns are the only product that are not subject to product safety regulations, so there are no guarantees that flaws in guns won’t themselves kill people.  We require the auto industry to make modifications to their products for the safety of people.  We license everyone who is going to drive an automobile, and we take away licenses from drunks, drug abusers, and old people whose reflexes or vision or some other disabling condition makes them a danger to others while driving a car.  Why can’t we define people who should not be owning guns and keep them from owning such lethal means of destroying human life?    We don’t allow tractor trailers to drive on some of our streets and roads.  Why should we allow the sale of  military assault weapons.  Machine guns have been banned since Roosevelt’s era, and we don’t have a machine gun problem any more.  But we do not ban semi-automatic weapons.  Not only might we prevent future events like those at Ft. Hood, or Va Tech, or Tucson, but we might drastically reduce the numbers of gun deaths by suicide. But with a gun its one shot and you’re done.   Let’s use some common sense, and apply the same rules to guns that we apply to automobiles and commercial vehicles.  Let’s build that more perfect union where we care about each other and work to build up the common good.

What is most alarming, however, has been the increase of dissembling, the telling of half-truths, and outright fabrication passed off as journalism. Our fellow citizens barely take time to read anymore, and clearly we are failing to teach our people how to think–much less the importance of caring–about public policies in our common life together in this country.

I want to invite readers to join me in some basic commitments to principles that can help build that “more perfect union” of which our beloved U.S. Constitution so eloquently speaks. Those principles are:

• democracy is a project larger than the self. Liberty requires justice to keep it from becoming narrowly individualistic, anarchistic, and selfish. Democracy means that we understand that we are in this world together and that we have to respect and consider one another in order to thrive. I have come to believe that libertarianism equals social Darwinism in its most rapacious form and I am committed to doing what I can to diminish the rampant libertarianism that spews forth on our air waves and from the mouths of the unthinking public who seem to have forgotten both the Golden Rule and the foundational tenets of American democracy.
• practical common sense should always take precedence over the merely expedient;
• political and legislative actions should benefit the greatest possible number of citizens and, if there is harm, let it be the least harm to the fewest number of citizens or to the earth;
• government is neither good nor bad, but our agency, in the words of the U.S. Constitution, “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”;
• citizens themselves, not politicians, can restore confidence in government, by our active participation to hold all politicans and elected officials accountable–not so much to their constituents and financial backers, but to the oath of office which they take to uphold the Constitution, both of the United States, and of the Commonwealth of Kentucky;
• short term benefits do not justify long term damage;
• and finally, the legislative and political ends cannot be used to justify any economic, environmental, or social means to achieve those ends, however noble or good those ends might be. Means and ends must correspond morally and consequentially.

Dissent represents civility when it respects the intelligence of the other and when it engages in thoughtful dialogue. Dissent keeps creativity bubbling in a social matrix. Dissent invites dialogue. Dissent motivates us to take action. It is not enough to merely talk about issues, we must be willing to act on our convictions.

This web-site is my effort to dissent from the political culture of our time. I want to reach people who share a diversity of opinions, and are willing to involve themselves in dialogue to find better political and governmental means to continue the great American experiment to “build a more perfect Union.” It will address issues that divide us as a people, and it will seek to find new ways of looking at intransigent and persistent difficulties that we have–morally, intellectually, and politically. The web-site will bring religious perspectives  to bear on the issues of our time, not in a moralistic prudish manner, but to see what insights progressive religious people might find to sort through ethical, economic, environmental, and political matters that become obstacles to the common good for all Kentuckians and all Americans.

Some of the topics I will explore in the near future include:

• health care reform
• the Stupak amendment
• economic justice and fair taxation in Kentucky
• responsible lending and putting caps on usurious interest rates
• care of creation
• the place of the arts in forming that “more perfect union”
• religious liberty

A disclosure of perspective (or some might say, bias):    At the end of a long professional career as an ordained minister, in which I spent the last 18 years as the director of an ecumenical council of churches, I would describe myself now as  something of a reluctant Christian. By that I mean that although I am an ardent follower of Jesus, I am also one who feels that much of his message and the meaning of his life and death have been distorted by Christian religion in ways that belittle human responsibility and in ways which have caused millions of people great harm.  I appreciate and respect the insights of other great faiths and religions, and believe that together, with our moral commitments to community well-being, compassion, kindness, justice, and peace, religion still has much to offer our world, our nation, and our Commonwealth–without having to make any one religion the civil religion, merely tolerating those of other religions or no religion.